In February 2023, the Danish Parliament adopted “the law on the consequences of abolishing Great Prayer Day as a public holiday“. As a result of the abolition, from 1 January 2024, employees must be compensated with 0.45% of their annual salary for the increased working hours. Here you can learn more about the rules for the compensation.
The background to the abolition of Great Prayer Day as a public holiday
In early 2023, the Danish government decided to abolish Great Prayer Day as a public holiday, meaning that employees are no longer entitled to a day off on the fourth Friday after Easter. The purpose of the law is to ensure that Great Prayer Day is considered a normal working day, where the pay and employment conditions that apply on normal working days also apply on this day.
The decision came as part of the government's efforts to modernise the labour market and increase productivity. With more and more companies operating in a global market, there has been a desire to adapt Danish labour conditions to international standards and create greater flexibility.
The government has argued that the abolition of Great Prayer Day as a day off will be beneficial to both the economy and the labour market by increasing productivity and competitiveness. At the same time, the change aims to create a more coherent working year without longer breaks, which can sometimes be challenging for businesses and productivity.
The abolition of the day off naturally has consequences for employees' working hours, which is why the government has set some rules for compensation for the increased working hours.
Different rules for paying compensation for Great Prayer Day
According to praise compensation for the increase in the employee's working hours shall be compensated through a wage supplement of 0.45 % of the employee's annual salary. The wage supplement shall be calculated on the basis of the employee's current, usual and foreseeable salary. The employer's contributions to pension schemes and fixed supplements, including shift allowance, on-call allowance and standby allowance, must therefore be included in the calculation of the wage supplement. Payment for overtime and holiday pay, on the other hand, should not be included in the calculation basis.
The payment of compensation depends on whether the employee is paid monthly or hourly, and there are different ways the employer can choose to pay the compensation, namely on an annual or monthly basis.
In addition, managing directors and self-employed persons with whom the employer works on a consultancy basis are not covered by the law.
Compensation for salaried employees
For monthly paid employees who have been employed by the company before 1 January 2024, from 1 January 2024 they will be compensated for the increase in their working hours through a salary supplement of 0.45 % of their annual salary. A monthly salaried employee is defined as a recipient with a fixed salary for a given period, regardless of the number of public holidays in that period.
It remains to be seen whether employees hired after 1 January 2024 are also eligible for compensation.
Compensation for hourly paid employees
If an hourly-paid employee is scheduled to work on Great Prayer Day, they will receive their normal salary for working on this day. If you have previously worked on Great Prayer Day and received a public holiday supplement, this supplement will be cancelled as it is now a regular working day.
Payment of salary supplements
Employees earn the salary supplement continuously from 1 January 2024 and it can be paid in two ways: on a monthly or annual basis.
If the employer chooses the monthly payment option, employees receive the allowance along with their normal salary.
If the employer chooses to pay the salary supplement on an annual basis, the employee will receive it together with the holiday supplement according to the rules of the Danish Holiday Act, i.e. twice a year together with the monthly salary for May and August. If an employee resigns from their position, they are entitled to receive the accrued supplement since the last payment of the supplement.
As an employer, do you want to keep Great Prayer Day as a paid day off?
There is nothing to prevent you as a company from making special agreements with one or more employees to have time off on ordinary working days - including, for example, Great Prayer Day, 1 May and Constitution Day, which are all considered ordinary working days in the same way as all other ordinary working days.
If you as an employer choose to offer your employees paid time off on Great Prayer Day, monthly paid employees must still receive the 0.45% salary supplement.
Want to know more?
Want to learn more about how you can easily manage Sunday and public holiday rules with Intempus? Then feel free to contact us for a no-obligation chat at +45 26390400. You can also read more in our blog post about the rules for pay and time off on public holidays.
Sources: EY.com, Retsinformation.dk.
